{"id":12166,"date":"2026-02-05T18:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/?p=12166"},"modified":"2026-02-03T20:06:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T20:06:42","slug":"furry-friends-relieve-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/05\/furry-friends-relieve-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"Furry Friends Relieve Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Health and Wellness hosts Barnyard Bliss<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Students had the chance to pet their stress away on Jan. 27 as Texas A&M University-Kingsville hosted the Barnyard Bliss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Barnyard Bliss was a petting zoo that came to be with the collaboration of Mimi’s Mini Farms and the campus Health and Wellness Department. This event was held to help students and staff unwind and take a small break from the stress of the start of a new semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The Barnyard Bliss had so much to offer, like drinks, snacks and even music to set the tone of a fun and laid-back afternoon. But nothing could be compared to the main event, the petting zoo. The petting zoo was filled with so many of the softest and cutest animals, including bunnies, baby goats, chickens, baby pigs and ducks. Everyone who attended had the opportunity to spend time with the animals to help release the stress of the start of a new semester.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cBecause all of the work, and a lot of the professors throw out quizzes pretty early, it’s nice to just come out here and chill out and take a break from school and just relax,\u201d student Benito Rodriguez, who attended the event, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      From the moment the event started the line quickly filled up with staff and students filled with anticipation to pet their stress away. Comparing the faces of each guest before and after going into the zoo was like comparing day to night. The time on the west lawn of Mesquite Village was truly a stress-free zone.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Esmeralda Gutierrez helped organize the event. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Photo by Edward Green. Esmerelda Gutierrez embracing a goat at event.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cAt the beginning of the semester they are all overwhelmed making sure that they are getting to classes, getting everything ready for classes and so we decided the second week of school is going to be the more stressful point so with the petting zoo it will hopefully give them a little down time to relax and destress,\u201d Gutierrez explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student Jaelynn Mendez was all grins as she described the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cCuteness aggression, I really do think that since you are aggravated about other things in life and once you see something really cute you get very like\u2026 \u2018I want to go pet that and I want to go do that,\u2019\u201d Mendez said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Apparently, the best way to unwind and eliminate some stress all you have to do is turn to a furry friend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health and Wellness hosts Barnyard Bliss Students had the chance to pet their stress away on Jan. 27 as Texas A&M University-Kingsville hosted the Barnyard… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":12168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[133],"ppma_author":[322],"class_list":["post-12166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","tag-campus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"authors":[{"term_id":322,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"israel-espinoza","display_name":"Israel Espinoza","avatar_url":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/wp-content\/litespeed\/avatar\/23494c9101089ad44ae88ce9d2f56aac.jpg?ver=1776165281","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12170,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions\/12170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=12166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}